TidBITS#409/10-Dec-97
=====================
In this issue we share gift suggestions from TidBITS readers far
and wide and add a few of our own. Suggestions range from the
mundane (such as a good spelling checker) to the unexpected
(imagine using a Mac as the base of a floral arrangement!). We
also point you to a few resources for matching up your old
computer equipment with people who can use it.
Topics:
GiftBITS/10-Dec-97
Entertainment
Business Software
Input Devices and Accessories
Macintosh Hardware
Miscellaneous (But Cool!)
Sponsors
Donate Hardware, Donate Disks
Shareware Spirit
Copyright 1997 TidBITS Electronic Publishing. All rights reserved.
Information: Comments:
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GiftBITS/10-Dec-97
------------------
Greetings, and welcome to TidBITS's 1997 gift issue. Following
last year's example, this issue falls outside our regular
publication schedule as a special issue. Think of it as a slice of
time at a coffee shop where different TidBITS readers dropped in
to share gift suggestions with fellow Macintosh aficionados. In
some cases, we at TidBITS know about these products or have tried
them for this issue; in other cases, we've done little except pass
on the suggestion with a working URL.
We were impressed at the variety of products suggested, to the
point where we recommend reading this issue not only for gift
ideas but also to be reminded of the wide range of products
available for the Mac. Although we tried to categorize the
suggestions, some don't fit clearly into one category, so skim the
entire issue so you don't miss cool items.
Finally, best wishes for a happy holiday season from the TidBITS
staff: Tonya Engst (who put this issue together), Adam Engst, Mark
Anbinder, Jeff Carlson, Geoff Duncan, and Matt Neuburg.
Entertainment
-------------
**Riven** -- I expected Riven, the Sequel to Myst, to receive
several suggestions. What surprised me, though, was that several
readers noted the game is fun to play in tandem with another
person. Adam White Scoville wrote, "Riven's
beautiful seascapes and immersing world consume not only me but
also my significant other; I suggest that Riven, from Cyan
Productions/Red Orb would make the perfect romantic gift for
couples that play together... or for those who prefer solo
pleasures. But be warned, the addictive nature of this adventure
is not to be underestimated; Atrus isn't kidding when he warns
that, 'For reasons you'll discover, I can't send you to Riven with
a way back.'" You can find more information about Riven in
TidBITS-403_.
**Email Effects** -- Gideon Greenspan from Sig Software wrote
about the $10 shareware Email Effects, a graphics package that
draws using ASCII characters, making it easy to create neat
signatures and other special effects for email. "I hope you don't
mind me mentioning my own product, but Email Effects is a great
way for people to send Christmas greetings to each other by
email." I tried Email Effects and had fun - I'd never used a
Square tool to draw out a square created with dashes, pipes, and
plus signs. The program has a professional interface, excellent
online help and tool tips support, and a command for putting your
document directly into a new Eudora email message (for other email
software, you must copy and paste). Sig Software has also made a
few pieces of ASCII holiday clip art available. I highly recommend
Email Effects!
**Explore Kilauea Volcano CD-ROM** -- Suggested by Davide Guarisco
, the $39.95 CD-ROM from FireWork Studios
enables you to take a virtual exploration of Kilauea, Hawaii's
most active volcano. Davide bought the CD-ROM while in Hawaii and
says his favorite part is the eruption section.
**MacBench CD-ROM** -- For speed freaks who love to benchmark
their computers, Keith Russo recommends the
Ziff-Davis MacBench 4.0 CD-ROM. Keith wrote, "Yes, MacBench is a
free download, but the online versions will not run some tests
that the CD-ROM includes. The first copy costs $5 and it's only $1
for each copy after that! You can mix CD-ROM titles from the
Benchmark series, so you can include the Windows users on your
list."
**The Bachelor's Cat** -- Novelist Lynn Hoffman
wrote in plugging her book, which was
produced completely on the Macintosh. "When I finished my novel,
The Bachelor's Cat (in Word 6), I formatted it as I wanted it to
appear in a printed book. A friend designed a presentation cover
for the manuscript (in Photoshop 3.0) and my agent submitted it to
publishers. When it was accepted, my editor and I swapped
revisions through email (Eudora 3.0) and the final cover was
designed in Illustrator 6 and Photoshop. The publisher sees it as
a big gift book." Amazon.com's Web site has a synopsis and several
customer comments.
Business Software
-----------------
**Eudora** -- Most TidBITS staff members use Eudora (we
particularly love its features for filtering, redirecting, and
personalities), and we last covered Eudora in TidBITS-405_.
TidBITS reader Steve Smith shares our
enthusiasm; he wrote, "I just bought myself Eudora Pro 3.1.1 from
[TidBITS sponsor] Cyberian Outpost (backorderd one day) for $29.95
+ $5 shipping. I suppose now I need to buy Adam's Eudora Visual
QuickStart book." Eudora Pro 4.0 will probably be out relatively
soon, given that it's in public beta right now and that the
Windows version of Eudora Pro 4.0 was just released.
**SpellTools** -- Almost any writer will appreciate a spelling
checker that works in most applications, enabling the user to
maintain only one user dictionary. In TidBITS-353_ we looked at
SpellCatcher from Casady & Greene and in TidBITS-376_ we continued
with a look at Online Army Knife.
We haven't covered other possibilities recently, but Victor Guess
recommended SpellTools from Newer
Technologies, a $19.95 downloadable spelling checker with a 45-day
trial period. Victor noted, "I appreciate SpellTools's capability
to work with virtually any application that uses text. It is more
than a just spelling checker. It will also normalize spaces and
returns, remove > characters from email, count words, and
UPPERCASE or lowercase a selection. It will also speak selections
with a choice of voices and will add time, date or user defined
text stamps. The only thing I miss is a function to strip leading
spaces quickly. The SpellTools Normalize Spaces function removes
multiple spaces, but it always leaves one."
Input Devices and Accessories
-----------------------------
**Kensington** -- Several readers suggested trackballs and multi-
button mice as holiday gifts, and Kensington's input devices were
particularly noted. Bob Beamesderfer's
observations were representative: "A great gift, especially for
Mac OS 8 users, is Kensington's Thinking Mouse, which has four
buttons. When I got Mac OS 8, I switched a button from click-and-
drag to control-click. This provides one-handed contextual menu
access."
**Contour Mouse** -- Adam uses a Kensington trackball with a wrist
pad and believes it helps him keep occasional carpal tunnel
symptoms under control; however, it seems that no one device can
help everyone - individuals must find individual solutions. Marsha
Goldberg supported this notion, writing to say
she'd purchased a Kensington device based on last year's holiday
issue and found it aggravated her condition. Fortunately, she kept
trying to find a mouse that worked and ended up with the Contour
Mouse, a three-button, programmable mouse from Contour Design.
Marsha wrote, "If you know a person who feels pain when using a
computer, the Contour Mouse can be a real gift of love. It comes
in five different sizes for right handers, and two (that I know
of) in left-hand models. It comes in Mac models, and PC and Sun
models for our non-Mac friends. Contour Mice are not especially
expensive ($89.95 for smaller Mac models and $99.95 for larger). A
gift giver would need to measure the user's hand through some
cunning plan (from the tip of the middle finger to the first
crease of the wrist).
**Precise Mousing Surface** -- In the mouse pad arena, two readers
wrote in to say they'd tried 3M's Precise Mousing Surface based on
the recommendation in last year's gift issue and liked it. Doug
Thomas commented: "On TidBITS's recommendation
last year I bought the Precise Mousing Surface by 3M. What a
difference! Both of us will never use another mouse pad again."
**WebPad** -- Another mouse pad possibility, the $8.99 WebPad by
MicroVision Computer Products (MCP), offers a clear lexan top,
which covers a sheet of paper underneath. The top lifts up, and
you can insert any paper that you like beneath it, either your own
or a sheet of provided stationary. The stationary has slots for
writing frequently used URLs, email addresses, and phone numbers,
and the pad also comes with a sheet that shows a 1998 yearly
calendar. According to Mike Schriner an MCP
representative who made the gift suggestion, "Lexan is a form of
polycarbonate which is the longest lasting and most durable
plastic made. The surface is very smooth and the mouse will track
well. Also, the mouse will not get as dirty as it would if used
with a fabric mouse pad - fabric pads tend to trap dust." On the
WebPad, my mouse moves more smoothly than it did on my previous
pad (one with a smooth, rubbery surface), and I like the pad's
clutter-reducing capability of storing a 1998 year-at-glance
calendar.
**Keyboards** -- Many alternative keyboards are on the market, and
Richard Fortnum commented, "I recently bought
an Adesso Tru-Form split keyboard. It's a full extended keyboard,
and it's ergonomic in two ways - it's split so that the center of
the keyboard is towards my belly a bit more, which untwists my
wrists, and it is also raised in the middle. It took some getting
used to, but it's easier."
I was unable to locate Adesso on the Web, but I did find the
Typing Injury FAQ page, by K.S. Wright and D.S. Wallach, which
covers a wide range of alternative keyboards, complete with
pictures, pricing, and contact information.
Macintosh Hardware
------------------
**A Zippier PowerBook** -- VST Technologies recently shipped a
much-anticipated expansion bay Zip drive for PowerBooks. Adam
White Scoville noted, "PowerBook users who,
like me put their machines through quite a pounding, but are never
as conscientious as they would like to be about backing up their
embattled hard disks would love to see an expansion bay Zip drive
from VST Technologies in their stockings. All the better to
justify that feeling of invincibility that one feels biking to
class with a PowerBook in the backpack." TidBITS-405_ has more
details.
**MacPicasso 516** -- Many of us at TidBITS rely heavily on Macs
with multiple monitors, so we were pleased when Kai Niggemann
suggested the Village Tronic MacPicasso 516
as a cheap way to attach a second monitor to PCI-based Macs, "This
small, inexpensive PCI Video-card is not very fast, has no
acceleration or anything, and only supports VGA so you need a
multisync monitor for it. But it is probably the cheapest way to
hook up that old monitor in the back of the closet. You can use
the second monitor to store palettes from programs such as
Photoshop and PageSpinner."
**CapSure PC Card** -- Video capture fans might check out the
CapSure PC Card from Irez Technologies. Marc Shipman-Mueller
described the card in detail: "Here some
notes on the CapSure PC Card, which costs about $130. It works
with the PowerBook 3400, 2400, and (I assume) the new G3
PowerBooks. It takes composite video or S-Video in, and can either
display the video on screen or digitize it. Even though the
digitizer is so-so, the onscreen display is great, since it uses a
technology called Zoomed Video. Zoomed video enables the card to
bypass the CPU, and send the video straight to the screen display
circuits. That means good looking, almost full-screen video. Plus
the CapSure can deal with NTSC, PAL, and SECAM."
**Power3D** -- Andrew Hartung commented,
"For the Mac gamer, how about the Power3D card from TechWorks? You
can find it for around $200 and it comes with a few games."
TechWorks bills the PCI card as "adding 3D gaming acceleration to
your PowerPC," and the card comes with Id Software's Quake Episode
1, Activision's MechWarrrior2, VR Soccer's VR Sports, and Bungie
Software's Weekend Warrior.
**Envision a PaperPort** -- In the cool peripherals department,
Jay Rolls suggested a Visioneer PaperPort,
a small, sheet-fed scanner: "I'm going to get my father a
Visioneer PaperPort. They've come down so much in price, they're
an affordable gift. I noticed how much Dad visits the library to
make copies. Since they already have a StyleWriter, all they need
is the scan mechanism to have a home copy shop!"
Visioneer currently sells two PaperPorts for the Macintosh: the
PaperPort Strobe for Mac and the PaperPort vx. The Strobe is a
newer, smaller model (1.5 pounds) and offers color support and
faster scanning time for an SRP of $299. The $149 vx is older,
larger, and doesn't do color. Both models connect to the Mac via
the SCSI port; check the press releases at the URLs below for
system requirements. Visioneer is offering a $50 rebate on either
model through 31-Dec-97.
**Hubby** -- Steve Kayner suggests, "I
found a nifty five-port Ethernet hub called the D-Link Hubby
(model DE805). It stands about 3.5 inches tall and has a cool
design that any Mac-head could appreciate. I bought mine for $39.
Here's the canned bit: 'This Walkman-sized hub is ideal for small
departments or offices, and it easily attaches to larger networks
by cascading to other hubs. For troubleshooting, Hubby is equipped
with LED indicators for power, collision and link/RX status.'"
Miscellaneous (But Cool!)
-------------------------
**Gargoyles** -- Mason Loring Bliss
suggested, "Monitor gargoyles
seem to be quite fashionable lately. They're neat, and they're
typically _not_ made out of plastic, which is a good thing.
Specialty gift catalogs often have them, and I've seen them in
local pagan-oriented shops. They're good for warding off software
conflicts, I hear."
**Make T-Shirts** -- Jeffrey K pointed out
that, "Hewlett-Packard, Canon, and Hayes make inkjet printer
t-shirt transfers. If you can imagine it, you can print it on a
t-shirt. And on multiple shirts. How about mail-merge shirts?
Become a cottage industrialist! Note that StyleWriter inkjet
printers have the Apple name, but Canon and Hewlett-Packard guts.
StyleWriters can use Canon and Hewlett-Packard (and Hayes) t-shirt
kits."
**Buy an Evangelista Shirt** -- Richard Fortnum
noted that The Apple EvangeList Web site is
selling Evangelista t-shirts. The $41.25 shirt pictured on the Web
site is a black polo shirt with an Evangelista logo on the front
and an Apple logo on the back.
**Headset** -- John Nemerovski suggested a
telephone headset as a gift, and I heartily second the idea. I've
found a telephone headset to be a great help at my computer desk:
it frees my hands so I can type or mouse while speaking (or
waiting on hold) and prevents my body from tiring in an effort to
hold the receiver during long calls. The headset I use at my desk
attaches to the phone with a cord, and that works well for sitting
at the desk. However, last Christmas, Adam gave me a VTECH 900 MHz
cordless phone with a headset. This phone is fabulous, because it
turns a long conversation into a way to complete useful but
mindless tasks (such as peeling vegetables, folding laundry, and
dusting) instead of a massive time sink. Adam likes to use it for
talking to his parents on weekend mornings while watering our
increasingly large collection of house plants.
**Computer Cuisine** -- If your gift list includes a cook who owns
FileMaker and has been wanting to try a recipe database, check out
Inaka Software's $10 shareware Computer Cuisine recipe template
for FileMaker Pro. Mike McGee from Inaka
commented, "Computer Cuisine comes with over 1,000 recipes
entered. It has simple-to-use menus, and a slick interface." Inaka
also has a compact disk database available from its home page:
**BibleViewer** -- For the biblically inclined Jim Cana's
notes, "I'm buying copies of BibleViewer 1.3
from HolyMac Software for clients and friends. It's a superb
resource, well-designed, fast, and uses the original (and best)
King James translation." BibleViewer is $10 shareware.
**Digital Cameras** -- Kai Niggemann suggested the Kodak DC-120
camera, "This digital camera stores images on a PC Card (with a
resolution of up to 1,280 by 1,024). The camera comes with a
Photoshop plug-in that allows you to access the camera via a
serial cable and grab the images directly from inside the
application." To learn more about digital cameras, check out the
just-published digital camera articles in TidBITS-407_ and
TidBITS-408_.
**AlphaSmart 2000** -- Richard Wanderman
wrote: "My gift suggestion is the $250 AlphaSmart 2000, a small,
solid state, super-sturdy, electronic keyboard that runs for 300
hours on 3 AA batteries. It's compatible with Mac OS or Windows
machines (and even the Apple IIgs) and is a no-brainer to use:
turn it on, write, turn it off. On airplanes it sure beats
thinking about batteries running out."
**Palm Pilot** -- Everyone I know who has a PalmPilot likes it,
and Doug Thomas is no exception. He wrote,
"For those expensive gifts I must say the Palm Pilot has changed
my life. It improves access to needed information. It's the first
electronic gadget I have bought that my wife feels is useful ."
**Pivot A PowerBook** -- We recently tried a Pivot 360, a small
$19.95 device made of two connected pieces of plastic with rubber
feet. The two pieces rotate; the idea is that you put the Pivot
360 on the table and your PowerBook (or any laptop) on the Pivot
360. You can then quickly swivel the PowerBook so different people
can see it, or so you can flip it back and forth between people
sitting on opposite sides of a desk. If you do small group
presentations with a PowerBook, you might find the Pivot 360
useful as an alternative to an expensive and heavy LCD projector;
it's small, light, cheap, and the rubber feet grip tenaciously,
which could prevent your costly PowerBook from sliding off a
slanted podium.
**Flowers** -- Steve Rittner suggested taking
advantage of instructions on his Web site for converting a worn
out classic Mac into a base for a flower arrangement, and learning
a bit about flower arranging in the process: "When I started
playing with computers I was fascinated when someone in the
Macintosh community suggested recycling older, non-functioning
computers as aquariums. As a floral designer, I have a slightly
different perspective."
Sponsors
--------
We'd like to thank our sponsors for their support, without which
it would be impossible for us to publish TidBITS for free. And of
course, we want to thank you, our readers, for doing business with
our sponsors when appropriate. As a token of our gratitude, we
offered our sponsors the opportunity to tell you more about their
companies or offer special deals.
**APS** -- APS sells computer-related storage devices of all
sorts, as well as expansion cards, peripherals, and a wide range
of accessories. They've also proven a good source for the $19.95
Handeze gloves that Adam and I both swear by for reducing RSI
problems. These gloves are not shown on the APS Web site, but they
are available via phone orders.
APS is offering TidBITS readers a $20 discount on a Q2000 external
hard disk. The disk is a "high performance Ultra SCSI hard drive,"
has a 2 GB formatted capacity, and includes digital active
termination and IC2E on-demand cooling technology. APS's price for
TidBITS readers is $279.95; the part number is 2210-002-500-1. To
learn more, visit the APS Web site and click Drives in the left-
hand navigation bar. Then, click the Hard Drives link. Drill down
into the SCSI-Narrow area, and finally click the APS Q2000 SR2000
link. APS -- 800/443-4199 -- 816/483-1600 --
**Small Dog Electronics RAM Special** -- Located in Vermont, Small
Dog Electronics sells new and refurbished hardware at low prices.
At the moment, Small Dog's home page features refurbished UMAX
SuperMac machines available, including a full system that comes in
under the $1,000 price point that so many PC vendors are trying to
meet and which Apple chose to ignore this year. Small Dog is also
running its second annual TidBITS year-end RAM sale; the table
below shows the pricing. Small Dog Electronics -- 802/496-7171
> Capacity SIMM DIMM G3
> -------- ---- ---- ----
> 8 MB $29 n/a n/a
> 16 MB $45 $55 n/a
> 32 MB $85 $89 $99
> 64 MB n/a $189 $269
> 128 MB n/a $499 $499
**Cyberian Outpost Discounts** -- Cyberian Outpost is a
mainstream, online, general vendor of computer hardware and
software, and has posted a Web page linking TidBITS readers to
product pages offering special discounts from Cyberian Outpost's
regular pricing. The listed products range far and wide, and -
coincidentally - include two noted in this issue: the PaperPort
Strobe for $284.95 ($5 off) and TechWorks' Power3D for $197.95 ($2
off). Other deals include PowerBook 3400c bundles, a RAM Doubler
2/Speed Doubler 8 bundle, the Gravis Firebird joystick, and more.
Cyberian Outpost -- 800/856-9800 -- 860/927-2050
**Soft Material** -- Soft Material publishes the $34.95 Pickle's
Book, a book/CD-ROM created by Japanese animator Thoru Yamamato
and aimed at children ages three through ten (see TidBITS-406_ for
more information about Pickle's Book). I asked Ted Byfield
at Soft Material what he liked most about
Pickle's Book, and he commented, "My favorite part is the way
Yamamoto shows a world as full of pitfalls as delights. That
ambivalence, which is unique in multimedia, reminds me of the
books that meant most to me when I was a kid: Kenneth Grahame's
The Wind in the Willows, Dr. Seuss's The Cat in the Hat, and Roald
Dahl's children's books. These are classics now, but they broke
all the presumptive rules about what's proper for children.
Pickle's Book is incredibly innocent but full of surprises, and
not all of them are sugar and spice and everything nice. Kids
respond to that, because it's like the world they know."
Ted also noted, "We came at Soft Material from small backgrounds -
working for small presses, running independent film distributors -
so we know how crucial our audience is, and _not_ just as a source
of money. I encourage people to tell us about what they like or
don't like, a project that might find a home with us, retailers
who'd appreciate Pickle's Book, or other ideas they have. We want
to avoid premiere hype, development secrecy, and
bureaucratized/marketized distance that separates producers and
consumers. Publishing is fundamentally about exchanging ideas, and
that's a two-way street." Soft Material -- 800/699-4144
212/343-2089 --
Donate Hardware, Donate Disks
-----------------------------
As much as the holidays in the U.S. have become a consumer feeding
frenzy, we prefer to think of them as a time for sharing. If you
have hardware or software that you no longer use, consider
donating it to a worthy cause. In so doing, you could be
supporting a non-profit organization, enabling a family to afford
a computer, or assisting a disabled person in gaining productive
employment. Further, by donating old equipment, you support the
ecological goals of recycling and reusing.
No doubt there are many worthy organizations involved in reusing
old computers. In searching the Web, I located the PEP National
Directory of Computer Recycling Programs, which links to many
organizations that accept donated computer equipment and pass it
on to worthy causes in several different countries. The U.S. list
has a few nationwide organizations, then breaks the listings out
by state.
I also found a site called Floppies for Kiddies, which provides an
address to which you can send extra 3.5-inch floppy disks. Student
volunteers at Louisiana's Fontainebleau High School reformat the
disks, and the project operates in partnership with UPS to
distribute the disks to schools and non-profit organizations that
need them. As I mail gifts to friends and relatives next week,
I'll also be sending our complete collection of AOL, CompuServe,
Prodigy, eWorld, and EarthLink disks to: USA CityLink Project,
Attn: Floppies for Kiddies, 20349 Highway 36, Covington LA 70433,
USA.
Shareware Spirit
----------------
In closing, I'd like to share the sentiment passed on by several
readers that this holiday season is a great time to register
shareware (and a registered copy of one of the many excellent
shareware games from Ambrosia, Stairways, and others could prove
an excellent and inexpensive present that can be enjoyed during
time off). Cheryl Linker commented, "Register
your loved ones' shareware for them. What a great way to double
the gift giving!"
$$
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